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“When and where did you see her last?”
Brendan didn’t like where this was going. Not one bit. He wanted to keep Katelyn, Kelly, and Beanie’s out of this if he could. His fingertip rubbed over the coordinates etched on hammered silver.
“Maybe two or three weeks ago in a coffee shop.”
“Why don’t you take a look at these.” Baldy slid a manilla folder across the table.
Brendan opened it. His stomach roiled. Bile rose in his throat. He swallowed it.
Salena, photographed in a state of grotesque decay. Naked. Swollen. Her skin looked waxy, slimy, and had a greenish tinge to it. Purple veins. Brown liquid seeped from her ears, mouth, and nose. Were those maggots? She’d been…he covered his mouth with his hand…cut in half. Hacked through the center of her torso like a magic act gone horribly wrong.
“Isn’t that the last time you saw her?” Baldy was looking at him now.
“No.”
Don’t lose your cool, man.
“The truth is she ended a romantic relationship with you and walked out on you a year and a half ago, isn’t it?”
Is this guy high?
“No.”
“That’s enough,” Phil interrupted. “Are we done here? My client has answered your questions. ”
“For now. We’ll be subpoenaing those records.”
Thank fuck.
Phil led him by the arm out of the interview room. “Not one word until we get outside.”
They got into Phil’s Mercedes and drove to a nearby parking lot. “Tell me everything, starting with the first time you met Salena Dara—and I mean everything.”
So Brendan recounted the night they all met Salena after Venery’s gig until the day he fired her from the club. Her fucked-up obsession with Kyan. Her threats. How he suspected she was behind all that shit with Taylor. The mayor. The priest. Angelica. Her extreme kinks. Her relationships with first, Hugh Brantley, and then his son, Eric. The senator and the money going into her bank account. The last time he encountered her at Beanie’s. Her threat to Katelyn.
“I’ll be goddamned.” Phil tapped out a text on his phone. “Fuck.”
“What?”
“And they’re looking at you?” He shook his head. “Too bad we can’t hand them that info.”
“Why can’t we?” Seemed reasonable enough to him.
“One, we don’t have solid proof.” He shrugged. “Two, we can’t tell the police you hacked into her bank account.” He paused. “But if you found it, hopefully so will they.”
“Whoever sent the texts to us during the whole Taylor thing was the same person who sent the video of Rourke to the cops.” Brendan pounded his fist on his thigh. “Same number. I know it was Salena.”
“The priest?”
“Yeah.”
“Hmm.”
There was a knock on the glass. Murphy was at the driver’s side door. Phil unlocked the car and he got in the back.
“Listen up, you know I can’t be seen here talking to you guys so I gotta make this quick.” He let out a loud breath. “Two witnesses said Salena told them if anything ever happened to her…it was you. And almost everyone they’ve interviewed so far said…that you said you’d kill her.”
“That doesn’t make him a murderer,” Phil sneered.
